


Boxed Up, Broke Free.

by ketchupfromyoutube



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Counter Sex, Dom Zayn, F/M, Protective Zayn, burlesque club, one direction - Freeform, one direction smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:47:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3404435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ketchupfromyoutube/pseuds/ketchupfromyoutube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His fingers thud under your ass, the right hand dragging its nails all along. The fullness of your left ass cheek scraped deliciously with candy coral lines. Marks from your predator and safe keeping.</p><p>"You'll feel that you're mine baby girl. You'll feel it all."</p><p> </p><p>(You go to a burlesque club with your boyfriend Zayn, and pals Harry and Niall. Zayn saved you from the corners trapping you in, you found the strength to be free...with him).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boxed Up, Broke Free.

The music box was a matte lilac, so pale it looked almost white. But the light cascading across the room, weeping through the blinds, gave it a pearlescent glow. And the color was true.

Your fingers were cold as they bent, unclipping the silver lock on the trinket. You freeze.

Tipping the box over and keeping the top closed, you grip the dial and wordlessly crank it all the way. The skin around your lips felt unused and lonely. Upright and opened up, it sang. Aerial piano dancing around the rotating ballerina in the center. She was painted to look just like you did when you were seven. Small bun atop your head and cheeks painted with halos of pink. Arms raised above her tiny head as if she practiced it a thousand times. Not afraid to fall, but didn’t fall often. Didn’t have any reason to be afraid…

The music is so delicate, so beautiful. To your ears, it was begging to be fractured. Just a slip away from the other side of the line. The line that would grow instantly to a wild jungle. Fruitful trees with drenched leaves and wild beasts. Separating what was safe and what you were running from by miles.   
     
“You’re such a sweet pea when you’re having those deep thoughts,” and that’s Zayn. 

You didn’t realize how low your head was hanging until you lift it. Lift your face and feel the smile crack the once still features. The warmth from your lips runs throughout millions of channels underneath your skin, not blanketing but fixing.  
    Every time he spoke to you, you were fixed. It didn’t seem possible at first but he was the piece of you that you couldn’t take without knowing you were the same to him. 

He is quiet, always letting what will happen play out before he takes another step. Zayn was still, not rushed or pressed for something. Needing only what he did in fact need. He once wrote down in pen that you were at the top of that list. 

"Hi baby," you whisper with that smile still spreading. Now flowing and pumping new, healthier blood within you, a successful business operating where you live inside.   
You turn in the chair to see him. He is standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his hands holding each other at his lower abdomen. Fingers slowly spinning their rings, looking straight towards you. The flavor of the air around him is mint, the silence welcomed to your chest as a promise that it was all okay. All still okay.   
Your vision rolls like a marble from a table top and across the dark wood flooring, on and on until you’re met with the sight of Zayn’s shoes. His black boots up to his black skinny jeans, wrapping tightly around his svelte legs. Your eyes follow the trail of his lower half up to his dark, very subtle green dress shirt. Long sleeves and high neckline, buttoned up all the way. You knew the cashmere was scented of Dolce & Gabbana. The skin around your earlobes did as well.  
     
And it’s the cooled, gentle vibration of Zayn’s voice that gathers the sightline up to his face. A spun luxury of gazing at his jawline, stubble across the silky smooth flesh there. His whisper pink lips, the curved bow resting on the pillow of the bottom. They moved to form his words and you lock your eyes with his. And the thick, long, raven colored lashes seem to wave to you before the dark cinnamon eyes light up your entire body. The spines of all the dusty books you let sit were broken and snapped a satisfying hiss, no longer doomed to sitting here and just thinking. Zayn laid his eyes on you…and you knew you had overthought it all a bit, hand’t you?  
     
What happened, happened. Your childhood a laundry list of unsavory memories. But he was your present, and your promise that tomorrow would happen too…no matter what.   
     
And that had to be okay. It was.  
   
And what he had said was,    
     
“You look like you’ve been thinking of it all, my love.” Zayn’s voice isn’t sad or disappointed. Never disappointed in you. When he found you, broken and dreaming in colors that only meant darkness, he scooped you up with no second thoughts.   
The lump in your throat creeps up like the nasty little phantom you knew all to well. Nodding and worrying your lips in, you turn to point all of you at him. A feeble attempt to find the solace your boyfriend gave you. But with Zayn, it’s less than a second and he is kneeling at you feet, pressing his fingertips against them. Soothing the pattering  of the muscles that you wished you could just stop.

You dreamed to be still and ready. Ready…

"My warrior, this will never ruin you," he says clear as if to scare the monsters back under the mattress. Swiping the cobwebs off the beams of your home and out the windows. 

"I…I know, god you’ve had to tell me this a thousand times, I should know by now…" You blink and two tears jut past your eyelids. The ink bleeding out of the pen, getting on your hard work. Not everywhere but enough to make you think you had to start over. Zayn’s hands leave your bare feet and cup your cheeks, thumbs stroking the blush. A heat of embarrassment and anger underneath you. Anger at yourself. 

"You’re sad right now, that’s not tainted a thing, oh gorgeous, you know you’re doing amazing…" Zayn breathes and gets closer, a lock of black hair falling over one eye. Both closed. His forehead is leaned against yours, fingernails now running a calm across your scalp. His touch a nourishing safety and injection of power. 

"Your family let their angel go when they said goodbye, I found my angel at that bus stop. You found me…you found me and made me whole, my angel," he says, face pointed to your ear and hand rubbing slow circles at the base of your head. 

"I, it just hit me hard today for some reason," you sigh, the air coming up from you is vulnerable. Your lips are wet from the tears, against his shaven sides. The small fuzzy hairs and his skin so so soft. So fresh and so familiar. Him.

"Just be." Zayn mutters the words so close to your lips, the cadence of his breathing teaching yours how to be. 

"Just...be…" You repeat into Zayn’s hair and nod. He smiles, you can sense it angled just below your nose. 

"That’s my girl." 

You’re fragile, fixed and fixed again and exhausted a lot. The anxiety can be too much but since Zayn, the memories of the falling out with mom and dad and brother weren’t so big and could be passed. Could be walked around without squishing your body to the wall, hardly breathing.   
You were okay, and ready.

***  
    

“Right mother fucker, so tell me then, where’s my big reward?” Harry giggled, red in the face from laughing so hard, arms crossed over his chest as he sat on the kitchen stool. 

"What were you thinking? I was gonna give you something for helping me move in? That’s what lads should do for their mates!”

"Are you fucking kidding?!" Harry counters, throwing his hands up, slapping them down onto his thighs.

"Should be compelled to come to my doorstep and offer your assistance!" Niall continues on, beer bottle moving with his wild gestures.

Harry’s eyes get a wild look as they get wider.

"Oh for goodness sake!"

"Hey, ya Niall? Can I please please please drag your heavy as dicks sofa around and wrap up your lamp?” Niall is trying for the tone of Harry’s deep voice, hand on hip and on the verge of hysterics. His cheeks are rosier than Harry’s. 

"Niall!"

"Awwww c’mon Harold! You know I’m right fuckin’ you up the arse, right? You’ll get your money," Niall chuckles and is met with a swipe of the calf from Harry’s worn leather boot.   
     
“Rowdy boys, we’re quiet in my kitchen, I’ll have you know…” you announce as you walk into the room and plop down next to Harry. 

"Heeey lovey," they both greet in unison, smiles taking up their whole faces.

Zayn’s footsteps sound from the staircase and he’s walking in after you, cleaning his glasses. His eyes are on you as you swing your legs from side to side, occasionally knocking Harry in the knee.

"And hello Mr. Professor! Where’s my assignment?" Niall teases with flecks of mischief in his blue eyes.   
Zayn grants him a mildly amused smile and shakes his head. “Just shut up,” he replies and sets his glasses down next to your hand. You bite your lip and put them on, smiling big at your man. He’s very blurry but you can tell he’s smiling. Can always tell.

"You’re so pretty," you giggle to him and trace a heart over his tattooed hand. Now he really gives a laugh, a real one to his girl, and bops your nose. 

"How can you tell love? I’m all blurry to you."  
"Well, yeah…but you’re a beautiful blur," you coo and wrap your arms around his waist. Harry and Niall are rolling their eyes. You don’t need your vision to know that for sure.   
    “How poetic of you, I’d give you an A, I would,” Zayn whispers into your ear and nips at it, all breath leaving your lungs for a split second. 

"I’m glad…" you mumble back. Your boyfriend was a high school English teacher, only started the job two years ago.

"Ooookaaay! Enough of that,” Harry drawls with good natured annoyance in his tone. Neither Harry or Niall minded the affection being shown, but you knew it was Saturday, the night approaching. And that meant one thing only for these mid-twenties lads. 

Going out. 

"Where we going yeah? There’s this new place downtown called like, Fetish or summat, wanna see what that’s about."

"No Niall, we are not going to a sex club, no." Harry is scoffing and dodging a coaster simultaneously. 

"Well you come up with something then, curly headed twat," Niall is totally smiling as he chews the chips, tossing loving glances his best friend’s way.  
     
“Well, how about Baby Jane’s?” you suggest, fingers squeezing Zayn’s tighter. Knowing his skin is pulled with more pressure as yours is too makes the light in your stomach go brighter. Niall and Harry turn to look at you, Zayn's eyes already there.

"Where's that?" Harry questions, clearly intrigued. Niall nods to know more.

"Well, it's um...it's this....burlesque club by the water...overlooks the bridge," you are hesitant and a little sheepish to be suggesting a burlesque club. Zayn is nuzzling into your neck and humming. All embarrassment is lost. Harry and Niall have eyes wide as cherry pies, mouths hanging open.

"Hell...yes!" Niall cheers around more chips as Harry bites his lip, smiling gratefully at your idea. 

"Genius, y/n....just brilliant."

"Well yeah, thanks..." you say and feel Zayn's jaw line up with yours at an opposite angle, fitting like a puzzle piece. His whisper almost knocks you off the stool and into the bowl of fruit. 

"You'll look so beautiful under crimson light my dear...I can't wait."

***

 

The sky is a navy sapphire, freckled by errant stars twinkling above your heads. The bay is wafting sea air to your noses and glazing over the exposed skin. The bridge stands tall and statuesque, lined with red and blue orbs of light to the peaks. The colors drip and ice skate across the ocean's surface, moving only slightly. Waves taking their time to the contrast of your rapidly beating heart.  
     
Your dress is a bitten red, dark and deep. The slit goes all the way up to the middle of your right thigh, the high neckline sweeping down to an exposed back. The silk of the train casts gently into the air as the sails of the ships explore the ocean. Zayn is in his crisp white and blue striped shirt, cutting down his waist and chest indulgently. The cuffs halting just at the top of his biceps, bathing his tattoos in the moonlight. All of his pitch black hair was combed to one side, facial hair freshly trimmed.   
     
The building is made up of faded but kept up brick, ivy climbing the walls of the almost five story facade. Getting close and closer. The yellow fairy lights hugging along the arch leading into a courtyard. Niall and Harry are bouncing from anticipation, pushing each other and losing their shit every time the drop of the bass seeps from the club.   
The clanging of ship bells rings in the distance as the clacking of your heels and the boy's boots melt. A firm tap into the asphalt and you're guided, by Zayn, into the seductively lit front patio.  
Seagulls called and waves crashed into the rocks. He pulled you into his side like rain water. Easy and natural, from the sky. It's his hand and Harry's palms that push open the silver and gold double doors.  
     
It's huge, so huge. The ambiance is various spotlights of candy apple red and mermaid purples and greens. Dark wood floors with diagonal laid rugs of Renaissance embroidery all across. Two side stages with girls in fishnets and lace stockings, corsets and curly bobs or long tresses. Cleavage displayed with fat pearls and long sparkling beads. Some only with crystal laden nipple tassels, huge feather fans covering as more articles are flung off. Diamonds along their lashes and viciously sweet smiles on their pouted lips. Brushed on with scarlet and pink and black.   
    Several waitresses and waiters clad in lace and crystals floated around the main floor quickly, flirty giggles tumbling off their tongues. The main stage was lit aflame by a sunset orange, lined with slowly grinding dancers. They were all spinning and twisting surreptitiously around a singer. The woman's hair is a platinum blonde a-line hairdo, lips getting very friendly with the retro microphone. A large sign above is the focal point of the whole place. A smiling blonde much like the singer is painted with long legs exposed. She's in baby blue shorts and matching blazer with nothing underneath. The woman salutes you all, other hand on hip, winking with a simpering provocateur. 

It's all so much and so dazzling. A fantasy seen in old movies and on Broadway's stage, come to life. Bursting at the seems with the expensive musk on the mens' collars and blush sweating from the girls' sparkling skin. The air chilled like a popsicle, syrupy sweet and dripping with a taste you'd think to save for dessert.   
     
"Oh....my....fucking god." Niall sounds close to orgasm, fingers inching further and further up into the air. His eyes can't seem to decide on where they want to land. A girl whose just hopped off the right stage breezes past, cleavage glittering, lashes winking at Niall. And he's gone.

"See ya later Ni! Jesus...no shame, that boy..." Harry shakes his head, tongue poking into his cheek. You laugh shakily, amazed but still nervous. Your hands wrap around Zayn's firm back, gripping the smooth fabric. The warmth radiates off his skin through it, all of the promise of safety that you need. He leans into the touch immediately and smiles down at you. Tucks a strand of your hair back into place. His fingers hold your chin as if you're a porcelain doll. Grips harder as his pupils feed the chocolate surrounding them, he knows you won't break. You never have...  
     
"You look so gorgeous, it makes my heart beat harder every time I look..." Zayn's voice doesn't have to compete with the live horns and strings behind the singer. His sentiments are more than that. Your life blood. 

"You are the most handsome man in the world...my man," You sink your teeth into your lip, eyes dragging over his cheekbones and electric lips. Your bodies lined up right in the center of this club become the target practice for the sizzle of the lightbulbs above. Fizzles of sugar sprinkling off the edges of martini glasses blended with the crying secrets of the violins. The staccato notes of the piano encourages the beat of your heart to travel up your throat, along the line of your jaw and across to Zayn's. Sharing the sensation of being conducted with the orchestra. 

"Drinks...we need drinks," Harry sounds somewhere in the background, charming green eyes pulling a bubbly looking red head to you three. You think you see Niall's blonde head bouncing up and down with a blue locked dancer in the crowd. You think...  
Harry hands you a frosty glass of something blue, a cherry stabbed and lounged above. Zayn gets something pink, Harry opting for the scotch. 

"Let's toast," Zayn announces. All your glasses clink cheerily and you sip again. So sweet.

"To y/n, for taking us here and making the night perfect," Harry says beaming.

You just tuck your head down and giggle gratefully. Zayn's mouth is nibbling on your ear the next second, wet and tingling of the candied liquor. 

"Yes sweet pea, here's to you..."

***

 

Harry was quite tipsy, as were you. Zayn was too as a matter of fact, but that's what happened when the waitresses were so kind and so stocked up with the sweetest martinis you'd ever drank down in your life.  
   
The second floor was dark purple, the walls covered in light reflected stars. That's where Harry leaned into you close and whispered how excellent your choice in clubs was. Where you smiled and patted his head, giving your return in thanks. Where he cheered when he won a game of roulette and high fived you, lacing the fingers and holding a tad longer than you expected.   
    But Harry was Zayn's best friend and he would never do anything inappropriate. You knew that, it was just...you felt Zayn's eyes and touch get heavier, more antsy. A stalk in his walk, a venom laced protectiveness.   
    
You carefully, somewhat leaning on your boyfriend's shoulder, made it up to the third floor. That was really something beautiful...the whole circular shape pinks and reds and hearts.   
    Real looking and smelling lilies and orange roses hung from the ceiling, clinged to the walls and under the glass floor. The midnight sky slept soundly, seen out the balcony. The terrace was framed by a large heart shaped arch, crimson mosaics and blue mirrors. 

"It's like a dream in here," you mutter with both hands now grabbing at Zayn. The temperature of his shirt less and less cool as the night progressed and the drinks sprinted the marathon harder. Harry rounded behind you clumsily, clutching at your waist to steady himself. 

"Ope!" He giggled, struggling to keep composure. Failing altogether when he knocked his head into Zayn's shoulder and finally found a safe way to lean against the wall. 

"Well ello, lovebirds..." He slurred with a flip of his hair and a press of his chewed pink lips. Zayn's grip on your waist felt much tighter. Your body craved more of it instantly.

"Hi Harry," you said with distraction in your voice, eyes only seeing bouquets and hearts and Zayn. Sparkling stars and cocktails and Zayn. Felt only Zayn and his hardness pressing into the side of your hip. Wanted, no, needed the thickness and heaviness of him between your thighs. Rubbing. Lifting, growing. Sinking in.

"Zayn..." You know your voice comes out as a pant, feel the winded tightness in your chest. A good, beautiful tightness.  
He stares back at you with every intention to give you what you need set in those rich, glazed amber eyes. Your world doesn't include other people than him. Doesn't exist with the clinking of glasses and fluffy echoes of other peoples' voices. Your world is only the scent of Zayn's skin. The ink of his tattoos playing a ballad that is speeding up and up and oh fuck, you were gasping for this world with only Zayn. Your world is only the weight of Zayn's cock rested on your bare, sweating thigh. 

And the look in Zayn's eyes sings a moan straight into your face and down your throat, and it is dangerous. An anger paints his features as he snakes his grip up to your elbow and tugs. Your bodies pour like the alcohol into glass throughout the club and underneath a big red heart.   
You can just make out his voice amongst the buffed, distorted strings and bass. The laughter and trills of the singer's vocals. The door is swung open and you do hear it, you do. You almost do not.

But you do.

"You'll feel that you're mine baby girl. You'll feel it all."

***

 

Zayn slams the door shut, a second later it's the lock being twisted. A click to the privacy and the virtue of your thigh invaded by his rough, hungry palm. The slickness of your heat throbs, clenching for something to be inside. Zayn's lips are on yours next, nothing calculated in both tongues but desire. Desperation. Hips in your hands as you shuck the hem of his shirt up harshly. Needed those hipbones bare and under your fingertips. Zayn lets out a throaty, wet groan and surges forward, plunging his strong tongue into your mouth. His taste mixes sweeter than the concocted sugar in the drinks. Swirls with the strawberry of your lipstick more raw than the diamonds tied to the women's necks.   
     
"Holy shit," You hear yourself sputter out as his hands effortlessly lift you up the back of the door by your thighs. The top of your dress is pulled off, your arms jerking hurriedly out of the straps to help. Zayn's growl more than implies his plans to rip whatever fabric gets in his way. As the breath in your lungs trembles his hold flows to your waist and uses the center of his stomach and chest keep you up along with his arms.   
     
"Some think they can act like your theirs..." Zayn speaks against the hollow of your throat, the dew of sweat hotter with his tongue. So fucking wet...

"People think they can touch my baby doll and some sick part of them...might think...for one second..."  
His fingers thud under your ass, the right hand dragging its nails all along. The fullness of your left ass scraped deliciously with candy coral lines. Marks from your predator and safe keeping. The brunt of his manhood is straining against the black pants and right up at your inner thigh. His nose is pressed hard into the little shelter shadowed by your ear. Sharp teeth chilly and biting down. Staying and popping right fucking off with the shove aside of your panties. Soaked. His fingers there. 

"Papi!" You gasp and throw your head back into the door, a bang and a rush of ecstasy as gritty as sand between your toes. Under the bridge and saturated with moisture and sea air, as it falls from your digits and back where it came from. Your man has you, and fuck does he have you so good.

“That you are…But the thing is, sweet pea..."  
His lips return to yours and catch the moans and squeals, the star MVP in this world series game. Fuck yeah, you'd fuck him in the glint of that trophy. 

"You're mine, and you've got me all wrapped up in you,"

Zayn's fingers dig into their meal, pads of the tips dipped into the drenched arousal of your lips. Index sinking deep...deep, a trill of your tongue. A chirped roll between your teeth as he fucks it to the hilt and back out, back in. Back out. Adds his middle finger and kneads your clit with his thumb. Your tears well up fast and the whimper is absolutely coddled with spit. "Oh fuck!"

"And you'd never be without Papi ey baby girl? So I need my sweet pea, need her so bad..." The violins and piano floods the third floor and into every crevice of the structure. A wall and bricks and beams dusted regularly of their own cobwebs. Your own cleaned and taken care of by Zayn. Keeping the bad guys away and the pretty, pretty music with you. 

"Need you too Papi, so fucking bad, only you. Always, fuck, only you."  
His movements are graceful but powerful, his legs braced just as strong as his hands on your writhing legs and dripping pussy.   
The precision like a dancer, perhaps much like you with your bun and ballet slippers. Seventeen and no longer fearing the floor meeting to tops of your toes.   
Twenty-two now and chest heaving, halos of pink more oval and revived to be that much more beautiful. And truthful.   
     
Zayn spins you around and your sat firmly onto the bathroom counter. Legs spread so wide to the trained stretch, going beyond teaching.  
The porcelain of the sink less breakable than the little doll in that music box. A good place to fuck. Zayn's kisses trail from your lips to your jaw to your ear. Three fingers deep inside of you, a cocked gun and a loaded arsenal right between both of your legs.   
     
You wanted to feel the gritty gun powder as you chewed down on your lip. Clamped down on his shoulder and grinded on his fingers. Zayn gasped when the heel of your hand pressed down hard onto the bugle in his pants. He cast his swimming glance to you and his grin went crooked, eyes almost closed. He licked his lips slow. 

"Want this cock don't you? Need your cock baby girl? Your cock that makes you feel so good..."

"Ah, fuck yes Papi," you hiss through barred teeth, eyes trained down at the twitching mass beneath his pants. He needed every bit just as bad. 

"Want that too," Zayn whisper groans while rubbing your clit and sliding those fingers out. The emptiness clangs like the coins thrown into the tip jar at the bar. More more more... 

"Give it to me Papi, give it to your sweet pea."

***

 

Zayn's cock is so satisfyingly heavy in your hands, long and thick, the vein on the underside of what's yours a cut throat reminder that this shit cannot be duplicated. You pump him hard and fast then slow and tight. The aggressive shake of your fist has you hitting your thighs, jiggling the flesh. His eyes roll to the back of his head, nostrils flaring. The drag of your thumb across his firm tip has Zayn blurting out precum onto your knuckles. 

"Need to be inside you, y/n...fuck...please," and Zayn's cheeks are so red. Teeth marks embedded in his bottom lip. 

The sink inside. The whip in the hands of the girls on those stages. 

"It's fuckin' so sick babe, your pussy is, fuck..."

"Sick as fuck huh Mr. Malik?" you cock your head to the side and pop down that red bottom lip. Smile. 

He smiles back and it's all love. The head of his dick hitting the pit of your stomach. Feeling him so deep, fuck yeah he makes himself at home where you can get your nutrition and it's healthy as hell.  
As far as he can go he'll go, hard and banging against that mirror. Your body shaking as his hands keeps you from spiraling to the sun. Rays hot and unstable as the speakers by the main stage. The flickers in your chests and the electricity of the neon signs hanging low and everywhere.  
Quotation marks of his fingerprints on your bouncing tits. Nipples darkened and pebbled with the pull of his teeth when Zayn lowers his mouth there. He looks up into your eyes and speaks with your breast worked in his jaw muscles. The guard to your heart the skin that's inside of him.   
     
"Dirty for daddy?"

"So filthy daddy," You squeak back and clench those calves to the brink of a cramp. It's all lit up and sweat drenched. The pearlescent glow more urgent and adding to your ego. You can't be dragged down fuck no. Zayn is circling his hips, pants around his ankles and locked his gaze right with yours.   
He lifts you up and as you hover above the rose quartz counters and heart shaped soaps; he fucks back in and out. To that wet, wet heat and he never looks away from your face. Your eyes are stitched into his like the pale pink frills to the music box.   
     
Cover up my dreams. Mom, dad, brother. Left me behind and this boy wanted all of me.

"Mmm...oh daddy, I'm...I-"

Zayn's free hand strokes the hair he watched you curl in the doorway before you left for the club. He watched you in the doorway mull over the painful memories. He's watching you now, unravelling in the most perfect way. 

"Sweet pea, cum for me okay? Come find me..." he says, eyes so full of music not played to train your ears but to be taken by your soul and cared for. You took the rub of his cock deeper and deeper until every single meaning of who and what you were was made up of babe! babe! baby!  
Winding up the music box all the fucking way and letting go, your ears were flooded with dewy, padded piano and welcoming, sunshine violins. Zayn moaned as the bow that hailed across the strings. Your squeal a whistle to the jaunt of the drums.   
     
You came seeing the stenciled hearts lit up like spotlights over emerald corsets. The girls flashing the crowd with a pinky to the side of their lips and your scream a crash of the cymbals. Zayn is right with you, gasping for air in the bed of your collarbone. You clench and suck him in, milking him dry of every last drop he has to give. He's yours. You're his. 

You two try to reclaim your breath and the hurt isn't in that part of your brain anymore. Not there and isn't ever supposed to be again. 

The girl in the slippers and top bun wasn't theirs at all anymore. Zayn's kept promises to love and stay never wavered or proven wrong. The girl grown up enough to be scarred but never ruined resting on this counter. Your legs swung airily around Zayn's body, one hand at the base of his spine, other in his hair. 

"You've done it." Zayn knows. Can always tell when the steady thump of your heart has slowed to show a calm and speed up to reveal the breakthrough. 

"I....I have," you croak out, voice scratched and so meant to be. Zayn inhaled a proud, emotional breath and leaned his neck back to look into your eyes.  
His hands cup your cheeks and the tears that fall are washing away the chains that bonded the memories and their pain with everything you loved about yourself. Corroding the metal, an acidic means to a melting end. Free.

You're in Zayn's eyes as he is in yours. 

The top is shut. 

The music stops.

"I've done it."

You're free.

 

***

 

"You're gonna love somebody someday Zayn," Yaser smiled as he cleaned up the toys off the carpet. Zayn peeked up from his toy train and uncrossed his legs, dressed in his ducky pajamas. It was the eve of his fifth birthday.

"Yeah dad!" He giggled excitedly and pressed his lips in concentration at his train. Yaser kneeled down and brushed back his son's hair.

"What do think love is, my sunshine?" he asked. Zayn looked back up at his father and took a moment to think about that...

"Love....is when...um..." he was interrupted by a hiccup. Yaser chuckles.

"It's when you help them through good and...bad. No matter...no matter what daddy..." Zayn managed through a gummy smile and a blush. 

Yaser gazed down at his son and nodded after a few seconds. Pride bloomed in his chest. 

"That's right my sunshine...that's right." Yaser kissed Zayn's head and walked to the kitchen.

"I love you daddy!" Zayn called from the living room over the running water in the sink. 

"I love you too, my duckling!"

Yaser dried the dishes later that night as Zayn yawned over his stuffed dog. He heard the mumbling as he carried him up to his bed. Into his father's shoulder and so quiet. 

"Love...." Zayn whispered.

Zayn Malik loved somebody. His father and mother and sisters. He grew up and fell in love with you.

You grew up and fell and broke and met Zayn. You fell in love with him too. 

You did it. 


End file.
